Max Reeb

Max Reeb

Maximilian "Max" Josef Reeb (born December 31, 1892 in Neunheim near Ellwangen; † September 9, 1940 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German art and church painter and restorer . During National Socialism , as a professed Catholic, member of the Center Party and committed member of the Catholic journeyman's association " Adolph Kolping " , he showed his negative attitude towards National Socialism from the start. This clear stance and the associated open rejection of the NS state and the NSDAP made him the target of the notorious district leader of the NSDAP, Adolf Koelle. After Reeb had refused to give the Hitler salute , he was arrested for the first time in 1934, which was repeatedly followed by new arrests after his temporary release, until he was finally taken into custody in Ellwangen in 1939 for "resistance to the SS" and then taken to the Gestapo headquarters " Hotel Silber " was transferred to Stuttgart . After further camps in the Welzheim , Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps , he was murdered on September 9, 1940 in the Dachau concentration camp.

Life

Origin and education

Max Reeb was born on December 31, 1892 in Neunheim. After attending elementary school in Neunheim, he switched to boarding school in Mergelstetten. He studied painting for ecclesiastical art at the arts and crafts schools in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart and then began his career as an art and church painter in Ellwangen.

family

Four years after the First World War , in which he served as a soldier, Max Reeb married Pauline Elisabeth Geiselhart on July 7, 1922. Their three children were born between 1923 and 1930: Rita Paula, Ingeborg Elisabeth and Winfried Karl. The family then lived in a house with a garden at Cäsar-Flaischlen-Weg 10 in Ellwangen.

Work as an art and church painter

Max Reeb worked as a freelance art and church painter in his own "workshop for dignified painting" and as a restorer in Ellwangen and the wider area. Numerous works from 1928 to 1939 in various churches in the East Wuerttemberg region testify to this . In addition, he took part in restoration and sculpture work in his father-in-law's company. Occasionally Max Reeb would take his children Ingeborg and Winfried with him to his workshop, where they would give him a hand. The income from these activities enabled the Reeb family to have a secure and adequate life.

Persecution by the Nazi regime, arrests, imprisonment in a concentration camp and death

Max Reeb was an avowed Catholic, a member of the Center Party and a committed member of the Catholic journeymen's association " Adolph Kolping ". Through his resolute and open rejection of the NSDAP and the NS regime , he became a target and ultimately a victim of their henchmen, in particular the NSDAP district leader Adolf Koelle. Reeb was warned several times by the Gestapo and was arrested for the first time in 1934 at Koelle's instigation for refusing to give the Hitler salute . After his release that year, Reeb was arrested again. He was charged with resisting the SS and their devastation on "Bishop's Night". On the night of May 3rd and 4th, 1934, local SA and SS men tore down the jewelry attached to houses and in the streets for the upcoming confirmation of Catholic youth by Auxiliary Bishop Fischer. Those, including Max Reeb, who tried to prevent this, were taken to the SS barracks the next day and interrogated for several hours.

From September 1939 to September 1940 there were further arrests for "derogatory statements against the Nazi regime and suspicion of wiretapping foreign broadcasters". In October 1939 Max Reeb was transferred from the Ellwangen remand prison to the Gestapo headquarters " Hotel Silber " in Stuttgart. After further camps in the Welzheim and Oranienburg concentration camps , he was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and finally to the Dachau concentration camp . Reeb's ordeal was marked by hunger and abuse. He died on September 9, 1940, allegedly of pneumonia and cardiac paralysis. His urn was buried in the Ellwangen cemetery at the end of October 1940. The official death certificate of the NS administration of November 18, 1940, issued only later, named cardiac and circulatory weakness as the cause of death.

plant

Ceiling painting in the former castle chapel Rötlen, which shows St. Catherine, the Mother of God and the baby Jesus as well as two angel figures

Max Reeb's artistic work includes many works in the decoration of churches, but also sculptural work. The documentation and cataloging of his work is not complete (as of 2020). Evidence of his artistic work can still be found in numerous churches, e.g. the Schönenbergkirche , in the vicinity of Ellwangen. A work that can clearly be ascribed to him in its entirety can be found in the former castle chapel "Sankt Katharina" in Rötlen . In this castle chapel of the "Schloss Rötlen", first mentioned in a document in 1622, there is a painting in the center of the ceiling that shows Saint Catherine of Alexandria with the Mother of God and the baby Jesus. Max Reeb not only presented the mystical story of this martyr, who, according to current research, cannot be assigned to any real person, but also immortalized his two daughters as two angelic heads in the picture.

Stumbling block for Max Reeb

Stumbling block for Max Reeb

Laying stumbling blocks in Ellwangen was initiated by citizens of the town of Ellwangen. The parliamentary groups of the SPD and Bündnis90 / Die Grünen submitted a corresponding motion to the municipal council in 2017, which was unanimously approved in February 2018. In the spring of 2019, the “Stolpersteininitiative Ellwangen” was founded, which, in line with Gunter Demnig's concept , would like to give the persecuted and murdered Nazi victims of the city of Ellwangen a name and remember them. On July 10, 2020, Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block for Max Reeb in front of the house Cäsar-Flaischlen-Weg 10.

swell

• Access book at Dachau concentration camp, archive unit 1.1.6.1 / 9893683, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Excerpts from the “Judicial Prisoner Book” of the Mannheim Prison Center, archive unit 1.2.2.1 / 11798327, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Excerpts from the “Judicial Prisoner Book” of the Mannheim Prison Center, archive unit 1.2.2.1 / 11798328, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Transport lists from KL Sachsenhausen to KL Dachau 1940, archive unit 1.1.38.1 / 4090908, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Transport lists from KL Sachsenhausen to KL Dachau 1940, archive unit 1.1.38.1 / 4090919, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Access lists of KL Sachsenhausen, archive unit 1.1.38.1 / 4094950, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Personnel card, KL Dachau, individual documents, archive unit 1.1.6.2 / 10261070, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Civil registration form, KL Dachau, individual documents, archive unit 1.1.6.2 / 10261071, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Prisoner card with prisoner number, KL Dachau, archive unit 1.1.6.2 / 10261071, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Personnel file, KL Dachau, individual documents, archive unit 1.1.6.2 / 10261072, IST Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives
• Office card, KL Dachau, individual documents, archive unit 1.1.6.2 / 10261073, IST Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives

literature

• Hermann Hauber: The events surrounding the so-called "Ellwanger Bishop's Night" in 1934: an eyewitness report. In: Geschichts- und Altertumsverein Ellwangen e. V. (Ed.): Ellwanger Yearbook . tape 35, 1993/1994 . Schwabenverlag, Ellwangen 1995, p. 121-125 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann Hauber: The events surrounding the so-called "Ellwanger Bishop's Night" in 1934: report by an eyewitness. In: Geschichts- und Altertumsverein Ellwangen e. V. (Ed.): Ellwanger Yearbook . tape 35, 1993/1994 . Schwabenverlag, Ellwangen 1995, p. 121-125 .